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Review Magic missing from parts of new kingdomBy ROBERT N. JENKINS Times Travel Editor © St. Petersburg Times, published April 22, 1998
Of course, the first throngs of an expected 7-million annual customers won't be content spotting the little critters, as I did Tuesday. The $800-million question for Walt Disney World executives is, will the guests be satisfied if they don't see the rhinos, lions, hippos, cheetahs, giraffes and gorillas that are the unpredictable lure of WDW's first new theme park in nine years?
And whether the animals cooperate or not, will a park with education as its theme prove interesting enough to keep the customers returning? After all, it costs everyone 10 or older the same $42, plus tax, to sample the animal conservation message that it costs for a day in the Magic Kingdom, Epcot or Disney-MGM Studios. And clearly, the three older parks are more fun than Animal Kingdom. For instance, Animal Kingdom has a single thrill ride, an indoors and partially in-the-dark, bouncing, lunging thing with the theme of going back in time to save the last dinosaur. Though it is decades newer, this Countdown to Extinction ride cannot match the wicked fun of venerable Space Mountain, in the Magic Kingdom. Similarly, the newest park has a train ride in authentic-looking reproductions of open-sided railcars. Suitcases, crates, even bicycles are strapped to the roofs of the cars that veer briefly past the landscaped areas of the safari ride and past the wild animals' sleeping quarters. But this ride lasts perhaps five minutes and currently shows little else of the park. Again, Magic Kingdom has steam trains that circle that park, and it also boasts the popular monorails. And a riverboat ride at Animal Kingdom is fairly tame -- but thankfully not as hokey as the creaky jungle river ride in the Magic Kingdom. Animal Kingdom does come out on top in a few comparisons with existing Disney World features: It's Tough to Be A Bug! is a slaphappy film mixing excellent 3-D techniques, puffs of air -- clear and scented -- clouds of carbon dioxide and a couple of surprise elements that will have audiences squirming in their chairs. The 81/2-minute film had to be fine-tuned, said executive show director Rick Rothschild, "to allow for the audience reaction, when they had been laughing" so much that they drowned out the soundtrack. Rothschild also headed the Disney Imagineering teams that created the Honey, I Shrunk the Audience 3-D film at Epcot, but Bug has superior effects and humor. Festival of the Lion King is 35 minutes of non-stop singing, dancing, trapeze work -- even flaming-baton juggling. Four lead singers, a dance troupe of 10, plus four stiltwalkers, giant AudioAnimatronic versions of Simba the Lion King and Pumba the warthog, and kids from the 1,000-seat audience work through the major songs from the film The Lion King. Doug May, who has created, produced or directed about 325 live-performance shows at Disney World, said this one was 21/2 years in the creation and staging, three months in rehearsals. The effort shows, and it tops similar live shows in the other parks. A clever playground, The Boneyard, has been created in the rather small Dinoland U.S.A. area, which almost seems like an afterthought to Animal Kingdom. The Boneyard has a rubbery floor beneath lots of climbing and crawling equipment around mock dinosaur fossils. In an adjacent covered area, tots can dig through a special mix of tiny pebbles to uncover more bones. This improves on the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids playground in Disney-MGM Studios, which proved far too popular -- and too crowded -- for the relatively small space it occupies. Of course, the name of the place IS Animal Kingdom. Nearly nine years in the design and construction, this park was twice put on hold when the parent company was concerned about finances. It was stocked mainly with donations of captive animals, provided after Disney was certified by the national Species Survival Plan to keep and breed endangered species. Less than $4-million in donations were made by Disney. "It cost us more to transport the animals here," disclosed Dr. Beth Stevens, director of Conservation and Science for Disney World animal programs. While Epcot can offer its Living Seas tanks and the Magic Kingdom has the little-used Discovery Island, they cannot touch the new park for live animals. Three attractions showcase them: Sure to be the most-popular feature of Animal Kingdom is the Kilimanjaro Safaris ride. Up to 32 passengers fill the benches of gasoline-powered trucks that bounce them over dirt roads and around the 110-acre mock African savanna. As the driver carries on a conversation with a recorded "Harambe Park Reserve" ranger, the driver and the passengers keep sweeping their eyes from side to side, hoping to see white rhinos, lions, cheetahs, elephants, giraffes, zebras, ostriches and other birds and hooved animals. Most of the animals are free to cross the truck road, so visitors can reasonably expect to be within just yards of them. Best times to find the animals moving are the early morning and late afternoon, before the heat gets to them -- and to you. Gorilla Falls Exploration Trail is a grandiose name for a chance to get quite close to 10 lowland gorillas. They are segregated into a pack of five young males and a family consisting of 18-year-old Gino, his two females and their two children. The groups are separated by a ravine, and visitors use a bridge through the ravine to glimpse the gorillas. Gino's clan also can be seen through a huge window; the 450-pound "silverback" likes to lie down against the glass. Visitors seeing this are unlikely to ever forget his bulk; his head is the size of a truck steering wheel. Conservation Station is the child-oriented educational area that uses everything from multilingual touchscreen televisions to live demonstrations to get the park's message across: "To respect this planet, to keep it whole, . . . to fall in love with animals," Roy Disney said on Tuesday. A nephew of Walt, Roy Disney is vice chairman of the board of directors of the Walt Disney Co. and heads its animation department. Will the message get across? Jane Goodall thinks so. The eminent primate biologist and adviser to Animal Kingdom told reporters: "What's happening here is definitely going to benefit animal conservation. A lot of people will come here because it's Disney, and they will be channeled into things they had not seen, things they had not been thinking about." She added: "The park is beautiful. If I were a captive animal, this is where I would want to be. Animals suffer so, in the wild. They won't here." The park has come in for criticism in the past month because of
the non-natural deaths of several animals from amount its stock
of about 1,200. But Goodall said, "I'm not at all concerned (about
the deaths). In zoos, animals are being born and dying all the
time."
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